Professional Left Podcast Episode 999: The Patron Saint of Corruption

“Chicago ain't ready for reform yet!”  -- -- Chicago 43rd Ward Alderman Mathias "Paddy" Bauler, 1955

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Professional Left Podcast Episode 935: The Wheels On The Cross Go Round And Round

“Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many" -- Matthew 24:11

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The Rise and Fall and Rise and Fall and Rise of the Bridgeport Empire?

Me, a week ago:

#MTPDaily

The same week that Rahmses decided he's not running for Mayor of Chicago again, Bill Daley (brother of Richie Daley) is suddenly on @MSNBC as an "expert" on whatever.@CharlesPPierce @whet @Athenae

— driftglass (@Mr_Electrico) September 7, 2018

From the Chicago Sun-Times 12 minutes ago:

JUST IN: Former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley plans to run for Chicago mayor, a spokesperson says. His brother and father once held the office. https://t.co/pOifiThtL3

— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) September 14, 2018

When Richie Daley left office, he left a shambles behind.

The mighty Daley clout machine which Richard II had inherited from Richard I had been retooled for the modern age to run on a rubber-stamp City Council and contracting authority money instead of a rubber-stamp City Council and city jobs, but once the Great Recession hit and the city's revenues took a massive nose-dive, the whole machine seized irreparably up. There were city-wide upper management buyouts, which is how your 'umble scrivener accidentally ended up running an entire city department for nearly a year, and pulling some amazing moves and running some groundbreaking projects that ended up being incorporated into the vocabulary of the Obama campaign.

Then there were city-wide layoffs, which is how your 'umble scrivener ended unemployed and unemployable in the teeth of the Great Recession.   And the layoffs didn't end with drones and technocrats likeme who had no political protection, but of men and women with clout er Chrissakes!  Which threw the whole clout system -- which ran on absolute loyalty in exchange for permanent job security -- into chaos.

To stave off the coming collapse, Daley sold off the Skyway for pennies on the dollars, and then sold off the parking meters for a quick cash infusion.  Both were rammed through City Council as long-term, rain-day funds when everyone fucking well knew Daley was gonna spend every nickle of it fast and stupid, like Paul Manafort at the Ostrich Apparel Center.  But none of it was enough and so Daley decided it was time to exit as a legend before the villagers drove him out with pitchforks.

And so it came to pass that da city hired themselves dis guy, Rahmses, to run a caretaker government and say "No" to anyone who asked for anything.  And now that Rahmses has decided to exit as an asterisk before before the villagers drive him out with pitchforks, the question then becomes, does the heir presumptive of the Bridgeport Empire still have the juice to reclaim the ancient throne of the Daleys up on the 5th floor of City Hall.

Back in 1973, Mike Royko, the mighty chronicler of all things Chicago, peered into the the murky bottom of a Billy Goat beer stein and divined the future of the city thus:

Daley has already ruled Chicago for longer than most kings reigned in their countries. At this point, many of his loyal subjects view him as more a monarch than an elected official. It seems obvious that he intends to pass the entire city on to his sons, which is a gesture worthy of a king.

And after an interregnum that spanned the clueless (Bilandic) the hapless (Byrne) and thesaurus (Harold!) that is exactly how history unfolded. And so now the real question is, does the Chicago Machine still have enough functional gears and cams and fuel in the tank to put one more Daley back in charge?

If I had to bet, I would bet against it.  If I had to bet, I would bet the next Mare of Chicago will be named Dorothy or Chuy.  Hell, if the vote is sufficiently splintered, maybe even Paul Vallas gets through this time.  But I am far away from Chicago these days -- no longer within earshot of the boys and girls who work the dark magic of big city politics.  So instead of prophecy, let me share a little history, in the form of the last, large-scale post I did on the reign of Richard M. Daley.

Sun Sets on the Bridgeport Empire: Finale



The corrupt dealings and authoritarian follies of Da Mare's long rule has provided Chicago writers with a treasure trove of material over the years. because however often the bureaucratic deck chairs were reshuffled (about every 18 months) and however much good was done (a lot), under the hood, the instrumentalities of Chicago Cityguv always operated according to two imperatives:

1. Eliminate all potential rivals to Richard M. Daley.

2. Keep the Clout Club intact.

Obedience to these directives inevitably resulted in an Administration characterized by both a high-handed dictatorial approach to government, and a strain of malignant neglect that Da Mare allowed to spread throughout his political domain.

Splashy headline-generating promises were routinely made to about the Great No-Cost/Low-Cost Things that were going to be entrepreneurially unleashed for da good people of da city a' Chicago dat we all love so much... 

... that were later quietly reneged upon in private ("Wireless Perversity In Chicago").

Regulations ostentatiously unveiled to show how reformed and squeaky-clean and not-at-all-like-the-bad-old-days-of-two-weeks-ago things were now...were publicly broken without so much as a peep from the press ("The First Rule of Clout Club").

Public assets were frantically sold off at pawn-shop prices to provide Hizzoner with enough quick cash to prop up the Final Days of his administration...after which all those lovely, lavish assurances about how the proceeds would be carefully set aside as a rainy-day fund were promptly ignored once Daley got his hands on the dough ("The Clout Burglars").

These were the sorts of things about which some of us -- too damn few of us -- ot up in Hizzoner grill about over the years.

Did he care?

Nah.

I mean, yes, Richie Daley was a bully -- charming as long as he got 100% of his way 100% of the time, but with a mile-wide vengeful streak in him and skin thin enough to read the fine print on a dodgy, nephew-enriching leasing deal through ("Layoffs, Nephews and Da Family Bidness")..on a moonless night...under a bridge -- but with a supine press at his feet, the tremendous machineries of the Chicago, Cook County and State governments at his command, a government press corps at his beck and call (including full-time Public Information Officers and Shakman-exempt [did you even know there was such a thing?] political enforcers at the elbow of every city commissioner and director), friends operating at the highest levels of Communist China

(never thought I'd live long enough to construct that sentence), the White House on speed-dial and his brother literally behind the throne, and virtually every civic, charitable and commercial board in the city stacked high with still-loyal formers executives and chiefs of staff...there was never any real chance of serious opposition to his Imperial reign.

Which did not relieve us from the moral obligation to speak out.

And now it is over -- a mayoralty never to be repeated or surpassed ...

 

...in longevity, reach or power, that leaves behind it a demoralized and exhausted government that is heading off a financial cliff... 

 

("Nothing Left to Steal").

And as the Age of R2D2 passes into history, I cannot help but recall how Hizzoner used to handle the shouters who routinely showed up at the city's public budget hearings and demanded answers from Himself.

Da Mare and his crew -- as was his custom -- would sit there stone-faced and let whoever it was yell for his or her allotted two minutes or longer. Then, as the troublemaker's jeremiad started to run long (or as they were escorted away from the microphone) every once in a while Daley would lean into his own mic and drown them out by loudly repeating "Go wit God. Go wit God." until they were well out of earshot. 

And so, in that spirit, go wit God, Mr. Mayor. 

 

Go wit God.

Funniest Damn Thing

I have read in weeks:

Exclusive: Bill Daley drops bid for governor

By Rick Pearson

Tribune reporter

7:00 p.m. CDT, September 16, 2013

Bill Daley abruptly ended his bid for the Democratic nomination for governor today, telling the Tribune that a lifetime in politics had not prepared him for the “enormity” of his first run for office and the challenge of leading the state through difficult times.

Daley, a member of two White House administrations, a presidential campaign manager and the son and brother of two former Chicago mayors, dropped out of the race less than four months after declaring his political resume gave him the best credentials to replace Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn.

“One of the things I always thought in my career that I wanted to do, I thought I would be able to have that opportunity, I hoped, would be to run for office. And even though you’re around it for a long time, you really don’t get a sense of the enormity of it until you get into it,” Daley told the Tribune.

“But the last six weeks or so have been really tough on me, struggling with this. Is this really me? Is this really what I want to spend my next five to nine years doing? And is this the best thing for me to do at this stage of my life?” he said. “I’ve come to the conclusion that this isn’t the best thing for me.”

Daley’s stunning decision to drop out of the race could give Quinn a virtually free shot at winning nomination for re-election in March...

The notion that anyone who has carried the name "Daley" around for the last 65 years like God's own corporate/political JPMorgan Palladium card would bail on his home-state's race for governor because -- after a lifetime of running political campaigns, corporations and the White House -- he suddenly discovered politics is really, really hard is so absurd that it defeats all attempts to punditize it properly.

The only time a political brawler from Chicago's First Family of political brawlers beats cheeks out of a political race is when he determines it is in his long-term best interest to move quickly in the opposite direction.  As you may recall, having spent 22 years in the empire-building business, Da Mare Hizzself suddenly decided to give it all up and hang out his shingle at exactly the same time that city revenue projections and his own popularity both plummeted after the Great Crash.  The citizens of Chicago woke up to find that Hizzoner had built his empire by buying political peace with revenue and projects and city contracts he would no longer have.  

The money from the sale of the Skyway -- meant to last for decades -- was all gone.  The revenue and same-as-cash prestige the Olympics would have provided never materialized (and the story behind that was a whole other pot of chili.)  The money from pawning the city's parking meters (to a consortium which would soon hire from Hizzoner's family and political retinue -- a stash that was meant to last for decades -- was all smoked up in a summer's afternoon.

Shortly thereafter came the buyouts.  Then the first layoffs in living memory.  Then many, many more rounds of layoffs and furloughs and school closings and city administration re-re-re-re-organizations.   Whole city departments vanished, leaving only a few file cabinets full of long, cumbersome performance evaluations of staff who were now gone given by managers who were now also gone, some boxes of unread books on management, a few reams of obsolete letterhead and a few bales of team-spirit tee-shirts and key-chains moldering and forgotten in closets here and there.

And so, being a very wise political boss, having spent every nickle he could borrow to keep his empire propped up a few months longer, Hizzoner quit, leaving his legacy of profligacy and crushing debt for future generations to sort out.  

History shows us that the heirs of Richard J. Daley do not step aside until stepping aside becomes the only, viable political option remaining.  Did I mention that Illinois is broke?  As in for-real, may-soon-have-to-live-under-a-crumbling-bridge broke?  It's a funny story.  Turns out that all those years lawmakers were supposed to be paying into the state's pension fund, they were more-more-less not doing so, which made everybody very happy a things were going along because who wants to raise taxes to pay for some geezer's corn pads in the far-off, utpoian neverland of...

...The Twenty First Century!

Remember how it sounded all majestic and prosperous when you said it like that?

But -- and here's the funny bit -- it turned out the millennium came and went, and the jetpacks and space-station tourism and perpetual, exponential economic growth we were all promised never materialized, and the wonderboys of yesterday became the geezers of today, and their retirement shopping lists, while mostly very modest, included a lot more stuff than just corn pads.

And that's when -- in a situation that eerily parallels the dire straits the City of Chicago began facing shorty before Hizzoner Da Mare made for the exits -- the by-now gargantuan unfunded pension liability of the Great State of Illinois started being talked about by people other than actuaries and poopy-heads.

I have no idea what made Bill Daley -- who has been eyeing the Governor's mansion for years now and who made it clear that he only entered the race after very seriously weighing every factor -- suddenly decide to back out.  For Democrat's who are now spared a punishing primary, this is a very good thing, so maybe he was paying off an  IOU.  Or maybe collecting a new one.  Perhaps he has read the tea leaves and thinks no Democrat can win, so why risk his political neck in a foredoomed campaign? (Bill Daley was, after all, one of the first to quit the Gore 2000 Florida
recount


when the going got messy.)

But I do know that fixing Illinois' massive budget and pension problems will require bending arms, breaking promises and deeply disappointing political friends and allies during some lean times to come.  And these days the Daley's political genius seems to only run hot when the cotton is high and the wind in at their backs.

Sun Attempting to Rise Again on the Bridgeport Empire

Just in case you thought the Lannisters

were the only indestructible patriarchy going:

Bill Daley to explore run for Illinois governor

Gubernatorial hopeful addresses major issues in campaign video

By Ray Long, Chicago Tribune reporter

6:40 a.m. CDT, June 11, 2013

Former White House chief of staff Bill Daley plans to announce Tuesday that he's forming an exploratory committee as he weighs a Democratic primary challenge to Gov. Pat Quinn.

The move allows Daley to start raising money and not let the summer slip away as he waits to see whether he'll get a one-on-one matchup with Quinn in March. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan also is thinking about running for the Democratic governor nomination, but it's unclear when she'll make that decision. It's also uncertain whether Daley will stay in should Madigan join the fray.

"I can control what I can control," Daley told the Tribune on Monday. "I'm not going to get into what-ifs: What if this person runs, doesn't run, wins this? I can't deal with that anymore, and I'm not going to."

The son of one former Chicago mayor and brother of another, Daley intends to unveil his new committee via a video at BillDaleyIllinois.com.

In the video, he lashes out at the at the state for dragging its heels on issues like gay marriage, pension reform and the "scourge" of guns in society.

"The people of Illinois can't wait," Daley says. "This will be a campaign of action and urgency."

Daley, 64, brings both government and private-sector experience to the table. Most recently he served as chief of staff to President Barack Obama after Rahm Emanuel stepped down to run for mayor. Daley also served as commerce secretary under President Bill Clinton and helped him pass the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 2000, Daley chaired the presidential campaign of Vice President Al Gore, who lost to George W. Bush by the slimmest of margins in a case that ended in the U.S. Supreme Court.

...

A Daley always pays his debts. 

Legacy Costs

Longtime readers will remember that once upon a time, during the twilight of an era now lost to history when your humble scrivener sat Josephus-like in the shadow of the Bridgeport Empire and scratched out occasional missives about the goings on of the sweltering many and the clouted few, Mare For Life Ah Da Grade Siddy A Shickaga -- Hizzoner Richard M. Daley -- starting selling off Da Grade Siddy Ah Shickaga's public assets at fire-sale prices.

Today, Da New Mare (one of the many Very Powerful People who were conspicuously silent as the deal went down, then went sideways, then swirled around the Clout Toilet Bowl for awhile to make sure all the right money filtered into all the right pockets, then finally went into the history books as one fucking godawful idea) boldly and retroactively pronounced the deal one fucking godawful idea:

“Chicago should never have done this deal,” Mr. Emanuel said.

but that short of going back in time and actually doing, y'know, the right-but-politically-perilous thing, despite the minor improvements that occasioned Mare Rahm's press conference, for the next couple of generations Chicago was basically stuck with the shit sandwich Dat Udder Mare Who Shall Not Be Named had squatted out as he made haste through the exit door:

Here are the details of today's revisions in the pact originally negotiated in 2008 by former Mayor Richard M. Daley:

On the plus side for motorists, Sunday parking will be free throughout the city, except downtown: the area between Roosevelt Road and North Avenue, and from Halsted Street to the lake.

Essentially, once the meter period expires on Saturdays, generally either 10 p.m. or midnight, no meter will have to be fed until 8 a.m. on Monday. The new system is supposed to go into effect by the end of summer.

Also, a new pay-by-cell option is supposed to be available by next summer. Instead of walking to a pay box and getting a ticket printed, parkers will be able to engage a phone app to pay digitally. A “convenience fee” of 35 cents will be applied to purchases of less than two hours, and those who use the app will have to set up an account with a minimum initial balance of $20.

Mr. Emanuel also stressed that charges the city faced for closing streets for construction, street fairs and other purposes now are being limited in the city's favor. Thus, for the two-year period that ended March 31, the city will pay its contractor $8.9 million, not the $49 million Chicago Parking Meters wanted. The city-friendlier math will be used in the future, officials said, saving $1 billion in estimated charges over the contract.

Now, the bad news:

The city agreed to add an hour on all blocks where metered parking currently ends at 9 p.m. In those spots, you'll have to feed the meter until 10 p.m. But on the Near North Side — from the Chicago River north to Division Street, between the lake and the Chicago River — metered parking will be extended three hours every day, until midnight from the current 9 p.m. end time.

Nor will the deal lower or limit the prices motorists are being charged, prices that reportedly are the highest in America.

Also: The city, per an arbitration panel ruling, will pay Chicago Parking Meters $54.9 million for a dispute regarding the use of disabled placards over the past two years. I don't know yet whether the deal will require the city to pay a similar amount in coming years.

Mr. Emanuel also made it clear that the city is not going to be able to junk the entire contract with Chicago Parking Meters, much as some aldermen would like that.

The $1.15 billion the city got under the deal “has been spent,” Mr. Emanuel said. “We can't make it go away. . . .But we can make it better.”

At a news conference today where he merely read a statement and declined to take questions, Mr. Emanuel did thank Chicago Parking Meters for making changes. He also promised that aldermen would have a minimum of 30 days to review the proposal — far more than the three days Mr. Daley gave them back in 2008.

...

Longtime readers with intact memories will also remember that, at the time, a few newspaper columnists for disreputable publications and a few bloggers working in the Bowery of the Internet thought that Da Mare's efforts to rip the copper pipe out of the walls of city government (so to speak) and sell them for scrap (to coin a phrase)  to a shady, well-connected consortium of  (among others) Abu Dhabi businessmen (no, really)...

The participation of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth funds and other international investors exposes the level of sophistication of the money behind the city’s parking meter deal. Mayor Daley and other proponents of the contract argue that it is too soon to know if the parking investors will enjoy solid returns, but the players in the Chicago parking company are known for their acumen for profitable long-term deals. 

Indeed, when the government of Dubai recently encountered economic troubles, the financial markets looked to Dubai’s cash-rich neighbors in Abu Dhabi for help. And in the case of the parking contract, the parking meter company projects a net income of about $58 million in 2010 , after this year more than doubling what the meters had brought in for the city.

...in a deal cut together by the firm where Da Mare's is now taking his post-retirement leisure (see Postscript the First below), brokered by the investment house that had previously given Da Mare's nephew a nice, little sinecure (no, really)

Billy Daley Jr.’s Cook County deal is hardly the first Chicago door he’s opened for Morgan Stanley. That’s what they hired him to do. But his exact role in some lucrative arrangements remain shadowy. 

For example, the Sun-Times reported in its series last month that “Within a year [of hiring], his employer signed a new deal with his uncle, Mayor Daley. Morgan Stanley got a 99-year lease to operate the city’s four underground parking garages. City Hall got an upfront payment of $563 million – the highest offer made.… 

Morgan Stanley told the paper in a statement that Bill Daley Jr. “was not involved” in any of the City Hall deals, but also refused to answer the paper’s written questions. And “In a brief phone conversation, Daley said he was too busy to talk and would call back. He didn’t.”

...and flaked by Da Mare's former-Daley-press-flak-turn-media-flak-for-the-company-where-Da-Mare's-kids-works-that-brokered-the-deal (Welcome to Chicago!)...

…Morgan Stanley officials declined comment, referring all questions to Avis LaVelle, the former press secretary for Mr. Daley who was hired by the parking company.…

...in order to prop up the profligate excesses of his Administration during its waning days

1. Positively reeked of the kind of incestuous insiderism that had given Chicago a black eye for a century and, 
2. Was maybe also just a terribly bad idea.

But no one listens to cloutless digital street gamin like disreputable newspaper reporters and even less reputable bloggers, and so the very, very bad deal Da Mare steamrolled through the rubber-stamp City Council on a largely party line vote (to those unfamiliar with the Chicago system, this is meant as whatchacall a "joke" inasmuch as Chicago has been a virtual one party Democratic fiefdom since Republican Mayor Big Bill Thompson lost his job as Al Capone's footstool) remained intact, reducing at least one disreputable blogger to cope with his utter powerlessness by making ha-ha funny posts about imaginary conversations between Da Mare and his Budget Office warlock/enforcer-turned-Chief-of-Staff-just-for-this-occasion while the people's property and legacy was put up on blocks and stripped for parts:

City Hall. Night. Phone rings. It’s the boss.

Hello boss.

Hey Volpe.

Uh….what can I do for you?

So da thig is, I need a billion dollars. For da people. Ah Chicago.

Volpe (forcing a weak laugh): What happened to the last billion I gave you? I told you not to spend it all in one place.

Long silence.

You tryin’ to be funny, Volpe?

The chief stays quiet. If they don’t want to be dispatched to

the Great Limbo of city college administration for eternity,

this is a skill chiefs of staff for Da Great City Ah Chicago

learn very quickly.

‘Cause you ain’t funny, Volpe. You never been funny.

Yes boss.

So what about dis billion which your Mare needs for da people ah Chicago.

Well boss, we’re broke. I mean, we told everybody we’re broke. We fired people. We’re going to fire more people. I don’t see how we can keep crying poormouth one day and then pulling money out of thin air the next?

I read the fucking papers, Volpe, and none a dat’s your problem. You problem is getting’ me my billion dollars. For da people. Ah Chicago.

But I’m not the budget guy, boss.

Really? 

No.

Well who is?

I don’t know.

How do you not know dat!?

I…I don’t know why I don’t know.

Ain’t it dat Johnson guy?

He quit. Last year.

Oh yeah. Da shower ting. Look, Volpe, it don’t matter whedder I call you chief ah staff or da King ah Monkey Island. You’re my money guy. Unless you got an itch to maybe run a dog grooming programming over at Malcolm X?

No boss.

Ever’body loves dogs.

No thanks boss.

An I hear a guy can make some good money givin’ dog haircuts. ‘Specially dose big dogs. What’re dey called?

I dunno boss.

Guess.

(sigh) Afghan?

Nah.

Kuvasz?

Nah.

Giant Schnauzer?

Nah.

Komondor?

Nah.

Anatolian Shepherd Dog?

Nah.

Bouvier des Flandres?

Nah.

Burkina Flopping Hound?

Dat ain't a real dog.

Leonberger?

Nah.

Bullmastiff?

Nah.

I give up boss.

But how do you not know dis information if you’re gonna give dog haircuts? Unless now you’re tellin’ me now you don’t wanna give dogs haircuts?

That’s right boss.

An’ what’s your title again?

King of Monkey Island.

So when am I gonna get my billion? For da people. Ah Chicago.

I can have a proposal on your desk in, uh, three days.

You got five minutes.

(There ensues a four-minute pause.)

We could sell something.

Whad’ya got left on da list? 

Buildings?

Nah.

Beaches?

Nah.

Ad space on police cars?

We're savin’ dat one for da Olympics.

“Win a Date With a Committee Chair”?

Who you got?

Mell or…Beavers.

Oh for da love ah God.

So…no?

No.

Median strips.

Nah.

Parking?

Well….if you really think so.

Sure. I mean, uh, definitively. Definitely.

So are you tellin' me you recommend we sell da meters? For da people. Ah Chicago.

I do. Absolutely. Of course we’re gonna need the Council on this. You think that’ll be a problem?

(Four minutes of uninterrupted laughter)

I don’t care what udder people say about you, Volpe. You’re a funny guy.

Thanks boss.

See, Daley kept his Machine humming by feeding it money: by "solving" altogether too many of Chicago's short-to-medium-term problems by locking the city into "solutions" which could only be sustained over the long-term if the economy kept booming like mad forever.

But projected expenses started to run ahead of City Hall's still-rosy revenue projections projected, and since Da Mare did not want to touch the roughly $1B dollars in very flexible TIF money he and his aldermen carved up and tucked away for their pet projects,  Da Mare started looking for more of the people's property to turn into fast cash.

Like, say, the Skyway:

Chicago Skyway handed over to Cintra-Macquarie after wiring $1830m 

By Peter Samuel on January 24, 2005

The Skyway is a local icon. Is this where the investors will go if it turns out they paid too much? The City of Chicago announced it "closed" the concession sale of the Chicago Skyway tollroad this morning after it received $1,830 million by wire transfer. It says a 99-year lease is now in effect giving the Cintra-Macquarie consortium rights to operate the tollway. The investor group operating under the name of their single purpose subsidiary Skyway Concession Company LLC (SCC) took responsibility and control at 2pm central time. At that time staff employed by a toll collecting contractor to SCC, a mix of old city employees and new hires, took over toll collection and other operations. The tolls from 2pm are the property of SCC.

Dana R. Levenson, City of Chicago Chief Financial Officer is quoted in the announcement: "This transaction, which is the first of its kind in the nation, fulfills Mayor (Richard) Daley's continued commitment to pursue innovative financing techniques, and has provided Chicago taxpayers with an unprecedented single, up-front payment of $1.83 billion that we will use to invest in our people and protect Chicago's taxpayers both today and in the future."

John F. Harris, Director, City of Chicago Office of Budget and Management [see Postscript the Second] said: "While some people believe we should use every cent of these proceeds right now to address our ongoing financial challenges, Mayor Daley and the City Council together have decided that we should prudently and responsibly use these funds to improve neighborhood quality of life and protect taxpayers over both the short and long term."

...

But for all of the talk of tucking a big chunk of the Skyway dough away for a rainy day, within a few years Da Mare had smoked up his "Today" stash, and his "Tomorrow" stash and his "Save this for when I party with Whitesnake" stash and his "No, seriously, don't even touch this unless Armageddon has really-for-real been announced" stash and his "Cubs Win the World Series Reserve" stash...

..just in time for the economy to tank and for all of those rosy future revenue projections to turn to ash and blow away.

So back Da Mare went to sapping Peter and razoring out his pockets to pay Paul.

But that was now proving harder than expected.  First, the deal to sell off the city's water system stalled.  Then the deal to sell off an airport hit some (heh) turbulence.  Then the quick cash infusion and long line of credit that a future Chicago Olympics would have provided did not materialize.

Which brings us all the way back to...

A) Parking meters.  Or, as Matt Taibbi explained the trend more broadly in "Griftopia":

You know how you used to have a job, and a house, and a car, and a wife and a family, and there was food in the fridge — and now you're six months into a drug habit and you're carrying toasters and TVs out the front door every morning just to raise the cash to make it through that day? That's where we are. While a lot of this book is about how American banks used bubble schemes to strip the last meat off the bones of America's postwar golden years, the cruelest joke is that American banks now don't even have the buying power needed to finish the job of stripping the country completely clean.

and,  B) Da Mare's very sudden decision that he din't want to be Mare no more.

Postscript the First:  To no one's surprise, part of Da Mare's post-retirement benefits package has included this:

On June 1, 2011 the international law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP announced that Daley would be of counsel to the firm. Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP was among the law firms to which the Mayor had no-bid awarded the City's legal work. Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP negotiated the city's much-criticized long-term lease of its parking meters, and also the city's leases of the Chicago Skyway and City parking garages.

Postscript the Second:  Truly mnemonically-gifted longtime readers -- the kind who crush everyone at trivia contests and win at Husker Du every time -- are sure to remember that "John F. Harris, Director, City of Chicago Office of Budget and Management" is the same John Harris who went on to become  Blago's Chief-of-Staff,  then moved on to a short stint as "star government informant" before finally receiving the shortest prison term anyone can ever remember:

Blagojevich's chief of staff gets 10 days in prison 

Defendant gets sympathy from judge, who sentenced ex-governor to 14 years 

March 29, 2012|By Annie Sweeney, Chicago Tribune reporter 

A former chief of staff for Rod Blagojevich who provided crucial assistance to investigators was sentenced Wednesday to a mere 10 days in prison by a federal judge who reserved his harshest comments instead for the former governor, suggesting he was an impossible boss and pointing out some had even questioned his mental stability. 

The sentence for John Harris was in stunning contrast to the crushing 14-year term Blagojevich began serving earlier this month in a federal prison in Colorado. In fact, Blagojevich has already spent more time in prison than Harris will. 

During the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge James Zagel took the unusual step of querying Harris about what it was like to work for Blagojevich, quoting from letters sent to the court about how unreasonable Blagojevich could be. The judge also made a reference to suggestions at trial of "some level of mental instability" on Blagojevich's part. 

Zagel, who also sentenced Blagojevich, went on to express sympathy for Harris and the "dilemma" he faced with a boss who wouldn't be dissuaded from the plots and schemes to corruptly trade on his office and influence for his own financial benefit. 

But in the end, Zagel concluded that Harris shouldn't avoid prison time entirely. 

"You were much too close to power, and you had an ability either to stop some of the things (or) report what was going on," the judge said. 

After a dramatic pause, Zagel then announced his decision — 10 days in prison, perhaps the shortest prison term ever imposed in a public corruption case in Chicago. 

...

Because there is still a Club.

And you are still not in it.